


The Sum of Our Parts

by misura



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Getting Together, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-27 14:50:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17768825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Jake has a brilliant idea. It fails spectacularly and is also a rousing success.





	The Sum of Our Parts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [millepertuis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/millepertuis/gifts).



Nate pines the way he does everything: where mere mortals leave it at a five, maybe a six, Nate takes it all the way up to eleven. It's pathetic, is what it is, and Jake has no intention of getting involved, except that he's human, all right, and Nate's not that bad. Sometimes. A very small part of the time.

"Want a bit of friendly advice?" Jake slides into the seat opposite Nate's. Means his own view of the object of Nate's puppy-looks is blocked but eh. Not like Jake's going to forget what she looks like or anything.

"Shut up," Nate says.

"Man, you need help. I'm serious." Jake raises his hands in a gesture that has never been about surrender. Amara had the right idea: you lift your hands, you sucker people into thinking you've got nothing up your sleeves, no tricks, no trumps, no nothing. People are idiots.

Nate's no exception, except that he sort of, kind of is. "Right. And I suppose you're going to give it to me."

Jake's mind helpfully pulls up some mental images of situations where Jake would be plenty happy to 'give it' to Nate. Hard and fast, or slow and sweet, waiting for Nate to say 'please', to really take that stick all the way out of his ass and replace it with something a lot more fun.

Possibly, this is not quite the right spirit in which to approach the current situation.

"Hey," Jake says. "This is me, all right? I know you. I know that if you was going to make a move, you'd have done it by now. So the fact that you haven't - well, that tells me things."

Nate gives him a look. "Things. Such as? Never mind, I don't want to know. Just - stay out of this, all right? I don't need you messing this up for me."

Jake decides he resents the implications of that statement. His feelings might even be hurt, because it's a hurtful statement, as well as totally untrue. It's not as if Jake goes through life messing things up for Nate on purpose - or even by accident, all that much. One, two times, tops.

"Funny. I was about to tell you the same thing," Jake says. "Only I'd planned to say it nicer, of course. See, Nate, I like you. You're my friend. And seeing you like this, all sad and pitiful, it hurts. It really does."

"I've been in your head," Nate says, as if people who drift together stay together, in eternal and orgasmic bliss or something. As if Nate shouldn't know better than anyone that drift compatibility is a trap and a trick and a big fat lie. "I know you like her, too."

"Yeah, she probably deserves someone better than you," Jake says.

Nate gives him another look. "Such as you? Funny. I don't see you making any sort of move."

"Look," Jake says. "I've got the smarts and I've got the looks and I've got the charm, yeah? But you - you've got your own stuff. So I reckon that together, we've got the whole thing. Like piloting a Jaeger, see? The sum being greater than the parts, that sort of thing."

Nate looks like he's thinking about it.

Jake tries hard not to, because he loves the idea of having Nate in his bed, all hard, hot muscle, and he loves the idea of getting up, close and personal with Jules, who's all soft and smart and warm, but the idea of both of them at the same time is sort of making his head explode, in a so good it hurts type of way.

Of course, unless he can get Nate on board, it's all theoretical.

"Forget it," Nate says, and then he gets up and walks away real quick, not even looking back to see if Jake's checking out his sweet, tight ass. (Jake is. Unlike Nate, he's not embarrassed to admit to having feelings. And urges. And pretty great taste.)

 

"You look like you could use a break."

Jake tells himself that he always knew Nate wasn't going to play ball. Might even be better this way, give him a chance to make nice with Jules, get to know her a bit better, without Nate around to make a hash of things.

Jules flashes him a grin. She's got a nice grin, very sexy. "That bad, huh?"

"Not ... bad," Jake says. "Good, would be more like it. Good, but tired. So can a guy buy you a coffee?"

"Wow," Jules says. "They charge you guys for coffee? What'd you do to piss them off?"

"Figure of speech," Jake says. "What I meant, obviously, was - "

"Another time," Jules interrupts. "All right? And ask Nate."

Jake blinks. "Ask who now?" On the one hand, this feels like sudden, unlooked-for progress.

On the other hand, he's made a plan, and Jules is sort of moving too fast, skipping a whole lot of steps in this great plan Jake's come up with, which will end with (hopefully) giving Nate the best sex of his entire miserable life and incidentally also letting Jake have his fantasy threesome and getting Jules the best two boyfriends who ever boyfriended. Or something like that.

"Your boyfriend?" Jules says.

Jake opens his mouth to deny everything, then decides to change strategies. "Oh, right. That Nate. You bet. How's tomorrow, after your afternoon-shift ends?"

Thankfully, Jules doesn't ask how he knows her work-schedule. Instead, she turns around and goes back to work, allowing Jake to notice her ass is almost as nice as Nate's. "Sure thing."

 

The grapevine being what it is, Nate's new relationship status is all over the base within a couple of hours. Jake figures that maybe he should be coming up with some sort of defense, something to tell Nate when he shows up, all growly and grumbly and hot and bothered, demanding an explanation but Jake does, in fact, have other things to worry about so he doesn't.

"Ranger Pentecost."

Jake tries not to wince. Imagining Nate's face helps. Jake tries to be good, really he does. Nate's accusations notwithstanding, Jake did his best to make things work between them, that first time. He figured he owed it to Dad, to be a good pilot, a good drifting partner. So he tried.

Problem is, Nate's Nate, and Jake's never more attracted to Nate than when Nate gets like this.

It's not a good thing to be feeling about the guy you need to work together with, the guy you need to invite into your head in order to move around the giant robot.

Jake turns and says, "Hi, Nate," because he knows that's going to make things worse, get Nate even more worked up. (It's stupid, really. They're names. Who the fuck cares that much about names?)

Nate glares at him. "You know, I just heard the strangest rumor."

"Wasn't me," Jake says. "Been busy all morning. Working. You know what I'm like."

"Yeah," Nate says. "I do know what you're like. Jake." He steps a bit closer, as if Jake's ever been intimidated by him, as if Nate stands any chance of taking him in a fight.

In a fair fight, Jake figures they're about evenly matched. They're drift partners; they know each other's moves and tricks and buttons. If they argued a lot on their first rodeo, that's on both of them. Nate could've stopped pushing all of Jake's buttons as easily as Jake could've stopped pushing Nate's. (Jake never really wanted to stop. That was his problem, though, not Nate's. Nate could've stopped. Nate didn't get a hard-on any time he got Jake yelling at him. Nate was stupidly perfect and self-possessed and the ideal soldier.)

"You do, do you?" Jake wonders what would happen if he'd reach out right now, pull Nate that little bit closer and press their lips together. "Go on, then. Tell me. What am I like, huh? Tell me."

Nate kisses him. It's kind of hot and a lot better than Jake would've expected, given that he can count the number of people Nate's kissed on one hand, and it almost makes up for the way Nate's also pushing him against a flat hard surface that's not real comfortable to be pressed up against.

Jake makes a sound. Nate backs away, his expression a little wild and a little scared and Jake thinks, _oh, fuck_ because it doesn't take an idiot like Nate to figure out what a prime opportunity for screwing things up this is.

"I - " Nate says. "You - " His face is flushed and he's breathing pretty hard.

Jake tries to think of something smart to say and draws a blank. He knows there's something, a joke he can crack, about Nate being bad at this (he isn't), about Jake being so much better at this (he isn't), about how this isn't going to end the way everything between them ended the first time (it might).

Nate shakes his head and says, "Forget it," which wouldn't even have made the top-ten of smart-and-or-funny things to say Jake might've come up with, so Jake figures it's now or never, do-or-die time again, and as usual, it's up to him to save the day.

(His back's going to be bruised six shades of purple but eh. You play the hero, you can't expect not to come out of it unscathed. Besides, Nate's going to make it up to him. Big time.)

 

Jules is grinning. Nate looks a bit shocked and, dare Jake say it, almost happy.

"Glad to see you guys worked things out."

"Couldn't have managed it without you," Nate says, lifting a (free) cup of coffee in some sort of salute.

Jake wonders what he's missed and how to ask about that without sounding any less smooth than he is.

"Yeah," he says. "What he said."

Jules smiles at the both of them. Nate smiles back. Quite possibly, there's a flight of pigs passing by overhead. Then, to add insult to injury, or confusion to more confusion, Jules reaches out and grabs Nate's hand, as if they're the ones who've been making out during work hours.

Maybe they have been. Maybe that's where Nate's turned into some sort of kiss monster.

Jake's a bit surprised to realize he's actually 100% okay with that idea, with the idea of Jules and Nate, together. Then again, he's never been the jealous type. He could afford not to be, with Mako as his sister and a hero of the Kaiju War as his dad. Jealousy was always other people - not Nate, never Nate, no matter how bad things got, but complete strangers, sure, they'd look at him and wish they had what he got, and not just his looks or his sparkling personality, either.

"I'm glad," Jules says. Nate squeezes her hand.

Jake's beginning to feel left out, until he feels someone's hand on his leg, under the table, at which point he starts to weigh the cons and pros of semi-public handjobs and how likely it is he's going to either get one or be able to give one.

"Down, boy," Nate says, like they're in the drift and he can see everything that's in Jake's head.

"You stay down," Jake says. "Me, I'm good right up here."

Nate rolls his eyes. It's a familiar gesture, but somehow, with Jules there, it feels like a sign of affection instead of a signal of exasperation. Like Nate's just leaned over the table to give him a big hug.

Jules smirks at him as if she'd reading his mind, which Jake feels should be impossible, because he and Jules have never even drifted together. Heck, if you come right down to it, they hardly know a thing about each other, apart from the bit where they both know Nate.

Then again, maybe that's enough.

"So anyone's got some stupid rule about no sex on a first date or anything?" Jake asks.

Someone kicks him under the table. Jake suspects it's Nate, but he can't be sure. That's new, and kind of exciting. Because Nate - well, Nate's always been kind of predictable, apart from those times when he wasn't.

"Hey," Jules says, "I'm game if you are."

Jake tries not to look smug. Or nervous. Or pleading. Or turned on. "Nate, my man, what do you say?"

"I say that you might want to stop running your mouth and start hauling ass," Nate says, and Jake almost asks, _'or else what?'_.

Instead, he decides to do the smart thing, and if that also happens to be the thing most likely to get him laid, well, never let it be said Jake doesn't have his priorities in order.


End file.
